For catching rats — or customers — the future is digital
Alarge pestcontrol company in Scandinavia is one of the best case studies around for the way enterprise software is about to change globally.
Typically, the company was regularly called out when someone had a problem with rodents, and it would send out a team to investigate and lay down traps. Later, the team would return to check the traps and replace those that had been triggered.
The details would be captured in the company’s enterprise resource planning system (ERP), where inventory, revenue and other traditional bookkeeping-style entries were made. Again and again. Rinse and repeat.
But in the past few months there has been a dramatic shift. The rodent traps have been fitted with devices that are connected to the internet, and send an alert when traps are triggered. Through a new software tool called field service management, the information is integrated with the ERP system, which co-ordinates service to the customer.
Aside from the fact that it intelligently allocates trap replacement, it also allows for data to be analysed via artificial intelligence, and the analytics, in turn, identify the type of buildings that are attracting rats. This allows for preventative measures to avoid vulnerable buildings becoming a problem, saving money for the client, and improving the efficiency of the service.
The same software, and the same principle, has been applied in Europe to limiting damage to properties from water, damp, heat and humidity.
ERP meets the Internet of Things, as connected devices are now known.
Both these examples were solutions provided by IFS, a Swedish enterprise software company operating in 60 countries, with 3 500 employees.
And they have significant applicability to key South African industry sectors like mining, utilities and telecommunications.
In March these sectors came firmly under the IFS spotlight when a South African, Darren Roos, became the new global CEO of the organisation. He had been president of industry leader SAP’s global ERP business for the past four years, and spent nine years before that at tech giant Software AG.
The IFS role appealed to him for a number of reasons, not least the new direction it was taking with ERP.
“I was intrigued because we see a tremendous amount of change in all industries. There’s an awareness, whether its retail, mining or the public sector, that you are under pressure to deliver a better service for fear of becoming irrelevant.
“The black cabs in London were massively disrupted by Uber, not because the newcomers did something creative, but because people wanted to order cabs, pay by credit card, and show drivers where they wanted to go.
“Because the industry didn’t digitalise, it was easily disrupted. That’s relevant in every industry.”
For this reason, Roos told Business Times during a visit to South Africa this week, he saw the integration of the IoT and the field service management solution as a way of keeping ERP relevant.
‘You are under pressure to deliver a better service for fear of becoming irrelevant’